STONY BROOK, N.Y. – The Stony Brook baseball team unveiled its 2017 schedule that includes road series at 2016 College World Series participant UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) as well as a 24-game America East Conference slate.
The Seawolves will travel to face UCSB as part of a four-game road swing in California in mid-March. Stony Brook will face the Gauchos for a three game series after taking on Pepperdine of the West Coast Conference. UCSB earned a trip to the 2016 College World Series by winning the Vanderbilt Regional and getting past Louisville in the Super Regional.
Stony Brook will open the season with three games in south Louisiana when they face McNeese State, Missouri State and Rhode Island for single games Feb. 17-19 in Lake Charles before traveling to Clinton, S.C., for a three-game series at Presbyterian Feb. 24-26.
March begins with three games against American Athletic Conference foe UCF in Orlando before the Seawolves open a five-game home stand beginning with a single game against NYIT on March 7 at Joe Nathan Field.
After a three-game series against LIU Brooklyn in Stony Brook on March 10-12, the Seawolves head west to battle Pepperdine and UCSB.
“As in past years, our 2017 schedule is very aggressive from start to finish,” Stony Brook head coach Matt Senk said. “Our early opponents will challenge us to compete at a high level as well as afford our players the opportunity to enjoy great learning experiences traveling to the states of Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida and California. Most importantly, the scheduleprepares us for our extremely competitive conference opponents in both the regular season and post season tournament.”
The Seawolves open the America East slate with a home series against Hartford (March 25-26) before hosting UAlbany (April 1-2). Stony Brook will also welcome Maine (April 29-30) and defending conference champion Binghamton (May 13-14) to Joe Nathan Field. The Seawolves will face UMass Lowell (April 14-15) on the road, along with Hartford (April 22-23), Albany (May 6-7) and UMBC (May 19-20).
In addition to the home opener against NYIT, the Seawolves also have Yale (March 8), Manhattan (March 21), Marist (March 28), Iona (April 4) and Fairfield (April 26) coming to Joe Nathan Field for mid-week contests. Stony Brook will travel to Marist (April 11) and NYIT (May 2) for mid-week games.
Stony Brook and Sacred Heart will battle in a four game series in early April with a single game In Connecticut on the seventh before a double header at Joe Nathan Field on the eighth and a single game on the ninth.
The Seawolves return 18 players from last year’s squad that posted a 27-27 overall record and reached the championship game of the America East tournament. Among the returners are seven position starters, including the all-conference performers Andruw Gazzola (Coram, N.Y.) and Casey Baker (Ronkonkoma, N.Y.). On the mound Stony Brook returns America East Rookie of the Year Bret Clarke (Royersford, Pa.) who was 6-2 with a 2.19 ERA in 2016 and all-conference performer Teddy Rodliff (Quincy, Ma.) who earned seven saves.
Since the Seawolves’ historic run to the College World Series in 2012 the program has continued its outstanding success with two America East regular season championships in 2014 and 2015, a conference tournament title and NCAA Regional appearance in 2015 and two more appearances in the conference tournament championship game (2014 and 2016). Stony Brook has also seen success at the Major League level with four alums on big league rosters in 2016, including Travis Jankowski (San Diego Padres), Tom Koehler (Miami Marlins), Joe Nathan (Chicago Cubs/San Francisco Giants) and Nick Tropeano (Los Angeles Angels).
2017 Stony Brook Baseball Schedule
